The day was cold and quiet. Zane was sitting on the bank of a river near the bounty's docking point. Looking at his bruised and bloody reflection in the water, he cringed. His face was severely broken, cut and covered with blue and black punch marks.
His arms were bandaged but, chips of dried blood stuck to his pale skin, and would fall off from time to time ,when the wind picked up, into the icy cold water.
He didn't even have to look at the rest of his body, knowing that it would look the same.
Zane sighed.
He had woken up alone this morning, and was glad of it...he didn't want to be beaten again by one of his brothers...for it would probably snap him. Not like they already haven't.
Due to the past few weeks of hard training, fighting, and the abuse, Zane has acquired 3 broken ribs, 5 stitches in both sides of his mouth, broken ankle and a concussion, which he was rewarded with a month of nothing but water...
Yea, his life sucked...but he was glad to be alive, that was one thing..the other thing is finding someone who actually loves you...that'll be hard...
Anyway, the nindriod woke up with a aching in his back, and a crick in his neck. Exactly was he'd expect for laying on a hard wooden floor.
It took him a while to stand up and stretch, his legs and arms had gone numb from beatings and blood loss, mostly.
But once he did get his movement back in his limbs, he stretched, quietly made a quick sandwich and glass of water, ate that, put everything back and then now here he at the bank of a river, in cold weather and covered in nothing but a dried bloody grey jacket and blue jeans with white shoes.
He was thinking about changing but, didn't want to wake up his 'brothers' and have them yell at him again...that would cause Sensei Wu and Nya to but it...and they do the most damage...
Zane yawned and rubbed his hazel eyes. He was thinking on leaving his brothers abuse behind and starting something new, though he knew he could never...
No matter how much his brothers despise him, he will always be there to save them...Keep them alive...Love them...No matter how much, they don't.
And he means it. He's told it to them so many times it's like...it's like his motto...
'No matter what happens, what you do, what I do, I will always be there to save you, keep you alive and love you...no matter what...'
That sentence echoed in Zane's dark void of a mind, the words pounding against his brain as the wind lightly blew passed his face. Sending a wide variety of chills threw his body as the long, shaggy, blond hair, he had fell back into his blue eyes.
Then, that thought made something hit him...
'Echo...' Zane mouthed quietly. His little robot brother that Nya and Jay had found at his fathers light house...he's dead...
His little, innocent, protective and peaceful brother...was dead...Killed, or should I say drowned, by none other than one of his other 'brothers'.
Echo was taken out by Kai to the Cliff of ninjago's beach late at night. He knew Echo couldn't swim, so he just forcefully pushed the young boy off the cliff and twoards the water below...ending with a SMACK!
How did Zane know this? Kai video taped it all...the moment Kai asked if Echo could go out walking with him, the moment Echo raced up the hill in excitement, the moment Kai lured echo closer towards the cliffs edge, the last moment echoes shinning hazel eyes stared into the camera...the moment Kai pushed him off...the screaming...and the splashing...the yelling...and then, nothing...
Echo was dead. And Zane...Zane caused it...he should have went with them...he should have said no...he should have just protected him...but he didn't...he failed...and people blamed him for his own brothers death...they still do...
But, the real thing Zane was blamed for...was failing...failing at...something...something he did to make Kai kill Echo...he didn't know what he did but, the abuse started the day after the Pirates were defeated...that was the day he was re-designed. Cyrus made him look...more human again...and that's when it started.
So, whatever he did on that day, which Zane doesn't know what, made his brothers hate him...but what did he do?! What did he actually do to make everyone hate him to kill his brother and abuse him?...
"What did I do..." Zane thought deeply as he placed his hands on his head, and tried to go back to that day. But, nothing came back. Just...just blank...he didn't get anything...
Zane cursed at himself for not being able to remember, and brushed his long hair back out of his eyes.
He groaned and looked back down at the cold water. A small smile on his face as he watched the skies dark reflection, began to light up with the Suns beautiful Rays. The warm light beated threw the remains clouds and shown onto Zane's back, quickly warming the Nindriods cold body.
His smile grew as he felt the warmth inside him grow. It felt nice to be warm again, of course he was the ninja of Ice and loved the cold but, sometimes...the cold gets boring...and you just need to warm up to new things.
Zane chuckled at that thought as Jay's cheesy jokes came to his mind...they weren't really funny and, Hes never told him this but, the day Zane found out he was a nindriod and had a funny switch...it was on the whole time...Jay was just never funny.
The nindriod never told him that though, He thought it would hurt the blue ninja's feelings deeply...and he didn't want that.
Zane smiled small again, and tried to find a way to entertain himself before his 'brothers' awoke and found him. He ended up drawing with a stick in the dirt. Drawing flowers, animals and writing various things in the soil. Some happy, some sad, some angry and some...just plain disturbing...
Though Zane was having fun. He had always had a foundness for drawing and many types of creativity. He used to draw pictures for his father all the time, before he passed...then he used his skills to create new weapon ideas and designs of favorite clothes for his brothers and sister...they always loved them...now they don't...
He didn't care that much about it though, they lost interest in his designs a long ways ago. Now, only interested in fighting and breaking him as much as they could.
Though, they'd never Sucssed. You can, physically, break a nindriod but, you can't mentally. Nindriods minds are in titanuim, you can't break threw it and it's the toughest sort of metal...besides obsidian...but we won't talk about that.
Zane sighed deeply and placed the stick down next to his side and observed his 'master peices' in the soil.
There was a drawing of a violet next to his foot, it's petals and steam neatly crafted and thought out as Zane looked at it more carefully, before turning to the others he had created.
There was a drawing of a germanshepard puppy, drawing of , picture of my brothers and...drawing of Echo's face the moment he died. They were beautiful drawings, perfectly lined and detailed. Nothing about them was wrong.
Zane smiled, but quickly frowned when the sound of laughter and joking erupted from the bounty's deck. The nindriod quickly wiped away his soil drawings, threw away the stick and quickly leaped into the woods behind him, not before trying to cover up his tracks, so that his brothers wouldn't find him.
His breath sharpened as he dashed behind a huge tree, squating down as low as he could get to the ground and covered his mouth with his hand to mask his breathing. Just in time to, Zane watched as his brothers jumped from off the deck and on to the spot Zane was just sitting at.
They were all smiling at eachother and joking around as they picked up rocks from the river side and skiped them across the icy water. Their smiled never aging their faces...even when Jay was forcefully throw into the water by Cole, he kept his smile and laughed as he splashed the rest of his brothers.
This made Zane smile, but feel a little hurt because they were having fun as he was hiding from them, in fear of being beaten again from just showing his face. He sighed deeply and head on he tree of the trunk and closed his eyes, trying to rest there a moment and regain the sleep me mist the night before.
Zane must have fallen asleep for a couple minutes because, when he woke up he looked from behind the tree, to see his brothers laying on the ground reaching hard and soaking wet. Cole even had his shirt off.
They were just sitting there talking about politics and random stuff the hiding nindriod did no understand. Zane was just about to fall back asleep but, Lloyd said that made him want to keep listening.
"Hey, you ever know what happened to frosty?" Lloyd asked looking over at Kai, who lay beside the green ninja with his damp spiked hair laying in his eyes. Kai looked over at Lloyd and frowned.
"I hope you mean your glad he probably bleed to death is what you're saying." The fire ninja said sitting up and dusting off the dirt on his back."Cause I dont fucking care about that little shit one bit."
Zane winced at Kai's words, he didn't cry, but winced.
Lloyd looked at Kai and laughed nervously."Haha, yea...I don't ethier, it just...when I went to check the hospital room for his body...it wasn't there..." The others shot up and looked at the youngest neviously.
"You mean that little shits still alive?" Jay asked in an angrey tone, standing up and grabbed a big rock and threw it angrily into the water, his teeth gritted."I knew we should have killed him, then and there! He has no meaning to us! Now he's out there some where living as a fake human making the rest!" Jay screamed kicking the dirt.
"Now, now, Jay. You heared Sensei Wu, he wants the scrap metal alive, for now." Cole spoke up, staying in his relaxed potion on the ground. His eyes closed and muscles tannng in the sun.
"Yea, for now! What can't we kill him sooner! What does Wu need they usless nindriod for?" Jay yelled angrily as he picked up another rock, and instead of throwing it in the river, he threw it twoards the tree Zane was hiding behind.
The nindriod quickly ducked behind the large trunk as the rock was nearly inches from hitting his head. Making Zane's breath sharpened as Jay huffed angrily one last time, before his footsteps could he heard walking u the bounties stairs, before fading away into nothing...
That only leaves Lloyd, Cole, Kai and...Zane...
Zane breathed deeply and peaked back from behind the tree and watched is brothers for the past 18 minutes.
They basically just stood there, minus Cole, and kept talking about Zane. Like, where He probably was, how to find him and what they'd do if they DID find him...It sent chills down his back.
He watched his brothers or a couple more seconds, before he watched them slowly start to leave. This made his heart rate slow down and his body loosen up. He smiled as he watched the brothers head up towards the deck. Their faces angry and fist tight.
'I bet they feel so ashamed right-' Zane's thoughts quickly stopped as his nose began to itch. He breathed in to try and make it stop, but that made it worse...the sneeze was Comming.
Zane tried to. Hold it in, but couldn't...
The nindroids eyes widened his eyes turned half lidded and...
"ah...Ah...AAH-CHHOO!" Zane quickly clamped a hand over his mouth as he hide back behind the tree. To late though...Cole already same home and heard him.
"HEY! THE LITTLE SHITS BEEN SPYING ON US! LETS GET HIM!" Zane heard Cole scream before a stampede of footsteps came from behind him.
Zane tried as fast aka he could to stand up and run away, run away and never come back, finally leave him brothers and try not to be killed...but, he failed..
A strong hand pulled on the hood of his jacket, choking him as he was pulled back into the open.
'Fuck.'
